34. Growth and Community in Muscatine with Mayor Brad Bark

Andre and Griff are joined by Dr. Brad Bark, Mayor of Muscatine and President of the Greater Muscatine Chamber of Commerce. We talk about growth and what makes Muscatine special. Also, how much water is needed to properly wash out a mixer?

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:09

Welcome to Loaded, the Hahn Ready Mix podcast with Andrea Meyer, Griffin Hahn. Uh producer Lex in and out. He's celebrating his birthday. Doesn't care about us. Doesn't want to be here.

SPEAKER_01 0:18

Doesn't care about us. It's fine.

SPEAKER_00 0:20

But we do have a special guest with us today.

SPEAKER_01 0:22

Yeah. Thank you very much for being here. Dr. Brad Bark. You can call me Brad. I'm good. You know, I was wondering. So uh you're mayor of Musketeen, right? So do we have to say like you're Mr. Mayor? Mr. Mayor. Your Excellency. I like that. I like that.

SPEAKER_02 0:39

I'm Brad. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 0:41

Well, thank you very much for being absolutely pod with us here today. So uh we'll do some interview or some uh announcements and then get into the interviews. That sound good?

SPEAKER_00 0:50

Yes.

SPEAKER_01 0:51

All right, cool. What do you have today?

SPEAKER_00 0:53

I wanted to follow up on I sent a random survey out to the drivers this week, which it was fun doing it, so I might do it more. But through Digital Fleet, I was able to send a survey, just kind of asking people how long they think it takes to get the amount of water you need to wash out the drum at the end of the day. And did you did you see the survey? I saw it. Oh, you saw the results. Yeah, I saw the results. Okay. So the options were three to five minutes, five to seven minutes, seven to ten minutes or more than ten minutes. Do you know what the right answer is?

SPEAKER_01 1:22

Six minutes.

SPEAKER_00 1:23

Six minutes. So the actual amount of water that is best for cleaning your drum is 200 to 300 gallons. I sort of think of it, I mean, just because I have no context uh as far as mixers go, but I do wash a lot of laundry. And the concept is uh more water does not make it easier to clean your clothes or to clean your drum. So 200 to 300 gallons is the recommended amount, and it takes six to seven minutes to get that amount of water.

SPEAKER_01 1:51

Do you monitor the amount of water that goes into your di your washing machine?

SPEAKER_00 1:55

Or like how do you I do know that that is I just purchased a new washing machine and I did a bunch of research, so I know uh I know more about that than I do.

SPEAKER_01 2:04

Oh my gosh.

SPEAKER_00 2:04

I know more about that than I know about uh mixer trucks, but we have done the research. We actually physically tested it out, Darren and Sheldon and Stopwatch and measuring the water. Uh so we just want to let everybody know that spending more than six minutes under the stinger is wasting time and resources.

SPEAKER_02 2:22

So yeah. And also putting a lot of clothes in there when my wife was gone.

SPEAKER_00 2:26

Overstuffing it.

SPEAKER_02 2:28

I overstuffed it because I'm like, I'll just put a a little bit more in there. No, that won't work either. Well, I'm no longer allowed to do that. So yeah. Yeah. What other announcements do you have, Andrea?

SPEAKER_00 2:39

Uh the only other thing I wanted to tell everyone it is the time of year when we start thinking about open enrollment and benefits changes. And we are going to, we probably will do a whole podcast on that topic when we have it all ironed out. But we are just now kind of getting our renewals and talking about what we're doing for next year. We don't expect any huge changes. There may be a slight increase, you know, as there typically is, but just so everybody kind of knows as they're seeing some of their other options come in that we're not expecting any huge changes, and we will do that in November.

SPEAKER_01 3:07

Yeah. Excellent. Um, I had kind of one kind of, I thought, a big announcement or request, I maybe I should say. Um I would really like it if we would pay attention and stop hitting stuff. Um so we haven't had anything um catastrophic or anything like that. Knock on knock on wood. Um but I in September we had over 5100 loads of concrete. And then you think about um raw materials and all those deliveries and rentals, and um you know, we we probably had eight or nine thousand round trips that we did in September with our trucks, and we had two very minor incidents where we bumped into something or all that. And um, you know, we'd rather that be zero, but that's not terrible in the context of that. In October, we've been a little bit slower than we were in September, and we're obviously only halfway through October, and we've already had six. So uh that's just a little bit alarming to me that um we're having a little bit more incidents um and we just really need to slow down and pay attention to our surroundings. Some of those incidents are are are quite expensive, even though you know we haven't had anybody get hurt, uh, thank goodness. So um that's been the most important thing. But you know, what one incident was a$15,000 fix to a a truck. So um those things add up. And another thing on that note is if you do hit something, please, yeah, it it's let's let's not say please, you must report it. Okay. We have to know uh because we can submit it to insurance and handle it the correct way. Um we it can't be something that we just wait to see if somebody else reports. No, we have to do that.

SPEAKER_00 4:51

Yeah, there's so many cameras now in the world. And even if you, you know, if you come in contact with someone and they're like, oh, it's no big deal, still just tell us because you never, you know, it might be a high schooler and they go home and tell their parents, and then their parent is the the mayor of Muscatine, and now all of a sudden we're on their list. You know right. Uh it's just always easier for us to take care of it if we are on top of it from the from the minute it happens.

SPEAKER_01 5:15

Yeah. Excellent. All right. Well, that's good for announcements. So, Brad, you ready to get into it? Let's do it. Okay. Why don't you start just tell us a little bit about your background? What led you to to serve as as mayor of Muscatine?

SPEAKER_02 5:27

Yeah. So quickly, I'm originally from Purdue Sheen, Wisconsin. Yes, I know it was a goose egg, you know, Wisconsin versus the Hawkeyes this past weekend, but originally from Perdershin, Wisconsin, and uh decided I wanted to do uh chiropractic. Okay. So uh first I went to UW Plattville for biology with a chiropractic emphasis, and then I graduated. And my wife graduated two years before me, and she knew she was I was gonna be going to chiropractic school. So she's an environmental engineer at Stanley Consultants and uh moved down to a place called Muscatine, Wisconsin or Muscatine, Iowa, not Wisconsin. Um, and uh went went to school there, graduated in 2011 from uh doctorate school. Did you up like travel up to Palmer then? Every single day. Yeah, it was really relaxing, by the way. So I mean I drove past this road all the time. It was very relaxing. Um, podcast, you name it music. Um, and graduated, opened up my own clinic in 2011, and uh was doing you know, cracking backs and necks for about 11 and a half years, and then had to stop after I had some surgery, which took me out of chiropractic and had nothing really to do. So someone asked me, Did you run for mayor? I'm like, nope. Asked me a second time, nope. Third time, like, all right, let's do it. Why not run for it? Yeah. And I was able to get 58% of the votes out of the four of us running. Oh, wow.

SPEAKER_00 6:50

Oh, I thought you said there were four votes.

SPEAKER_02 6:52

No, not four votes. Well, well, you never know.

SPEAKER_01 6:56

Well, you you're you're a bold man because politics just uh seems like a just super fun thing to be involved in right now.

SPEAKER_02 7:02

I would uh it's uh very interesting. And um, you know, we're very much we try to stay neutral as much as possible, but you know, we are who we are, right? And uh sure and then um so that's January 1st of 2022. And then I also became I was asked after an extensive search uh to be the the president CEO of the Greater Mustang Chamber of Commerce and Industry July 6th of 2022. And I was able to do that because as mayor, I don't vote. That that's the only reason why. So I have to just know where the boundaries are, but yeah, um, it's a very good position to have.

SPEAKER_01 7:36

Um I I love that setup that um you're sitting on kind of both sides of the fence on that. And and you know, yet that was going to be my next question. Was the the chamber of commerce say because it's probably more pertinent to our conversation here today as we're as we talk in. Um, but I think that that's really neat that you you have to have a an advantage over other chambers or other um people that are sitting in one of your two seats because you can see things from both angles, right?

SPEAKER_02 8:04

I mean, it's it's great. I mean, when when there's projects that come into Muscatine or anybody that wants to develop, they'll sit around the round table and then you'll have the city minister there, the senior planner, maybe a couple of council members, a couple of board members, yeah. Customer service, and that's what it's all about with the chamber of commerce and the city of Muscatine. Yeah, you bet. So do you have like two hats?

SPEAKER_01 8:22

Do you have like a blue hat and a red hat, and then you just like change it?

SPEAKER_02 8:25

Like actually, I just let me bring the mayor in and then I'll just yeah, turn on the chair. Here I am. Yeah. No, it's it's it's been great. Um, and usually like when you have a ribbon cutting, you used you have the the president of the chamber on one side holding the ribbon, then the mayor on the other side. So um, I you know, obviously I have another person uh holding the other side, but it's just it's really special, and there's just a lot of good information and insight you have working with both teams.

SPEAKER_01 8:52

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 8:52

Yep.

SPEAKER_01 8:53

Awesome, cool. So you've been in Muscatine, would you so you said 2011? Is that what you moved there?

SPEAKER_02 8:59

I uh 2007, then went to school for three and a half years ago.

SPEAKER_01 9:03

Yeah, okay. So you've been there almost 20 years. Um oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, absolutely. Yeah. Um you know, Musketeen has a really rich history. What do you think makes that community so special?

SPEAKER_02 9:15

The Mississippi River, number one. Uh-huh. And then number two, some of the uh the founding fathers, uh, the big businesses. I mean, they are so generous and working in collaboration with everybody else. They want to see Muscatine thrive. They could have gone anywhere else, but because that Mississippi River, which is why we're there today, and then just uh the collaboration of getting things done, um that's what makes it special. I mean, it's it's 100% the history.

SPEAKER_01 9:44

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 9:44

I mean, you talk to some of these uh people that have been there years ago that are maybe 80 years old right now, and they're like, we could go anywhere, but we choose muscatine. If we uh need something and musketeen doesn't have it, we'll drive to Davenport or the somewhere else to get it and come back home. But it's it's great.

SPEAKER_01 10:01

Yeah, cool. So as you look to the future of Muscatine, what's uh because you have this perspective from both sides from the the uh Chamber of Commerce and the city, what what's your vision? Where's Muskine going?

SPEAKER_02 10:17

Grow, baby, grow. Grow, baby, grow. I like it. Yeah, yeah. I mean, the the big thing is um since 2022, um, you know, the population's been very stagnant for some time now. Um, but there's been so much momentum since then that now we're starting to see the fruit of a lot of the things that have been happening um to the point of from the start of 2022 to projects that we know we're gonna be having happening probably in 2026, 2027. We're already um over the 1.5 billion dollar mark of plans or things that have been finished already, which is fantastic.

SPEAKER_01 10:51

Like like investment in the community, capital investment, capital investment.

SPEAKER_02 10:54

So this is uh our infrastructure, this is companies uh expanding, building a new, you know, cat litter plant, things like that. Yeah. Um more familiar. Yeah, absolutely. I was gonna say, which is very important for everything that you guys are about, right? And that's the whole point. 2014 and 2018, there's about 443 million with an M million dollars of capital investment, 19 to 2023, about 1.2. And then yeah, it's just it continues to grow and grow.

SPEAKER_01 11:23

That's wonderful. That's wonderful.

SPEAKER_02 11:25

Yeah, so the future definitely looks bright. Yeah. Um, you know, you have uh some stores looking in muscatine, some restaurants. Yeah, you know, we cross our fingers for Chick-fil-A. Oh, yeah. Yeah, I don't know, just little things like that.

SPEAKER_01 11:38

Cool, cool. What is there any like specific priorities or projects that have you kind of excited that you're you're able to talk about, right?

SPEAKER_02 11:46

I understand that you know, we really like the light industrial projects because um, if I put my mayor hat on, it brings in more tax revenue. Um, a lot of times people are like, our taxes went up. It's like we set the we set our city um tax levy, but then there's other entities that will work with that as well. But that's the one that will bring in the mo most taxes. And if we can build our tax base, then it decreases the amount of taxes overall. So light industrial ones um are very important. Um, I have to say the Muscow Sports Dome, yeah, um, sports center is uh almost finished. Yeah, the largest one in the state of Iowa, inflatable. Is it really inflatable? Oh, yeah. I didn't know that. Yeah, okay, cool. Wait, when we found out um, I think it was uh Sioux Center had the largest, I think it's like 118,000. So you went to like 118 and a half, or you just 122,000. That's got them. And uh so that you know, and again, what a great, what a great atmosphere, and it's for the it's for the whole county.

SPEAKER_01 12:47

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 12:47

So people in the county can utilize it. We have some free time set aside.

SPEAKER_01 12:51

Yeah, that's wonderful. Yeah. I love where that's at. You know, I grew up playing soccer on the fields across the street at the the soccer complex, right? So um it's uh it's a I love that Muscatine kind of has this dedicated sports area, right? I think that's really cool.

SPEAKER_02 13:07

And we're looking at developing that a little bit more too, just uh as close to the sports dome as you can.

SPEAKER_01 13:12

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 13:12

And just a kind of a fun fact back in 2012, one year into health uh doing chiropractic care, um, I was able to bring up the idea to someone like, hey, could we do an indoor dome, something like that? And it was mentioned that it's too big for muscatine, probably not. So will we kick that up into that's right, exactly. So don't give up on anything, is what I'm trying to say.

SPEAKER_01 13:34

Yeah, cool, cool. So with all this, you know, this this planned growth and and investment, like how do you maintain um kind of the really close-knit community, small town feel in muscatine that that so many people, like you say, will are committed to and and come back to?

SPEAKER_02 13:52

Um, so basically, I'd say the big thing is just getting everybody to get input. I mean, the the input is very much important. What do people want? Um, we do surveys, we talk to um all of our constituents, like what do you guys want to see in Muscatine? Take that inventory, and then depending on where it's at specifically, we'll we will go after, we'll make some calls to try to you know accommodate that as much as possible. Um, there's been a lot of people talking about we need to update a riverfront, things like that, which I have which has been done, right? The whole riverfront, like that that um it has been done, but I feel like there's much more that could be done to it. Sure. So, like uh our boating community. I have a boat, I love the river, I love going on the lake, but we need to do some things to accommodate that, maybe a bait shop or a barrel store, restaurant on the river. So little things we're looking at little by little.

SPEAKER_01 14:42

Yeah, that's neat. That's a good idea. What about like where do you see some like growth weaknesses for the city? Like what's what where do we have um work to do?

SPEAKER_02 14:53

Well, I'd have to say infrastructure, electric, you know, and we're we're fine with the electric. Yeah, um, we're fine with electric, but with um, you know, with growth with what we're hopefully projecting, we're gonna need we're gonna need some power. Yeah, yeah, most definitely. And you know, I prefer like uh you know the typical um power that we typically have. I mean, we're just talking coal generation.

SPEAKER_01 15:16

We love cold generation because we get fly ash that we use in concrete from that. So we're a big fan of cold generation.

SPEAKER_02 15:21

Because you know, and it doesn't take up a lot of space too. So I know that there's uh huge push for solar, understand that. Uh, if it's in land that maybe the crops are not growing as much, absolutely. But yeah, I love the farmers. Yeah. Yeah, you got you have to continue supporting the farmers. Absolutely.

SPEAKER_01 15:36

And you know, muscatine has such kind of unique farming, right? It's not just corn and soybeans like the rest of Iowa. You got watermelon and cantaloupe and you know, all sorts of fun stuff uh down on the island. Absolutely. Yeah. Well, the power thing, you know, that's not a muscatine unique problem. That is nationwide, everybody's grappling with um with the rise of AI and all this stuff. The power uh needs are just skyrocketing, right? So everybody's looking, that's gonna be a focus of probably every community in the country, you know, that it that wants to grow anyway, um, going forward.

SPEAKER_02 16:12

So I was gonna say, you know, one unique, I'd say, weakness or you know, just a growth inhibitor is we can't grow into the river, you know, so we have to go out, push into the county, you know. So that's the the that's some other looking things that we're doing too.

SPEAKER_01 16:27

You know, we have some experience with on-river construction. So if you wanted to grow in the river, you know, we can put trucks on barges. We've done it before. There we go. Andrea is grimacing over here. Fair enough. It's not our favorite thing to do, but uh, we've done it. Yeah. Yeah. Do you have to watch them sometimes?

SPEAKER_00 16:46

Like, don't say well, I told you about editing the podcast, right? I love it.

SPEAKER_01 16:54

Yeah. Yeah. Okay, like chamber side. Um, what uh what is a chamber doing to help A attract businesses, but but also for the businesses that are in Muscatine? How do you help uh help them attract people? Right. How do you think about it?

SPEAKER_02 17:10

Our number one focus is always, at least underneath when I'm there, it's strictly retention. We are very thankful for all the residents, all the businesses that we have right now. So digging into them, figuring out what are you needing specifically, right? Now, organically, you're gonna get people that are interested that want a piece of what we have as well. Um, we use data analytics, um, so void analysis. So we could put like little geo fences around places, and what would go good right here? Well, we want a restaurant with Mexican food, which by the way, we have 16 Mexican Yeah, there's lots of food, which is and they're delicious, they're wonderful. Yeah, yeah. Um, but you know, it'll spit out information like, hey, you need to reach out to this franchise, and they're that's how we're looking at trying to grow, depending on what people are wanting. Does it match what Steve's thinking right now? But we utilize data analytics uh quite frequently with surveys and just talking to people.

SPEAKER_01 18:04

Cool. So a lot of the businesses in Muscatine have really deep roots. Um, you know, we're we're one of them. We started in Muscatine in 1884, right? So been around a long time. How how do the businesses that are there help support the community better or help support the chamber to push growth? Like what what what can we do as a as a company in Muscatine to help?

SPEAKER_02 18:26

You know, I everything uh comes back to history, you know. You uh don't forget where you came from. And it's kind of like the song uh small town, you know, it's just by uh John Cougar Mellencamp, just never forget where your roots are, where you come from, things like that. And uh at the end of the day, um you have some big names there that have really deep roots, yourself included, right? And uh it's really cool just to gather insight to them so you're just continue their legacy as much as possible. But then when you have like six of these, you know, quote unquote giants in Muscatine and you have them all around a round table, it's intimidating because they think differently. Yeah, right. They're it's not about self, it's about growing the community. Yeah. And um, I'm not kidding you when I say you're not gonna be surprised, but a lot of these projects that we work on are typically with public-private partnerships.

SPEAKER_01 19:22

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 19:23

The watermelon, the dome, the riverfront. You know, you had uh you had uh an entity that basically remodeled the McKee button building when they could have just expanded on their current headquarters they have now for much less the cost.

SPEAKER_01 19:38

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 19:39

They could have just bulled those, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 19:40

But and it's it's you know, someone that grew up in Muscatine and and very thankful we got to do the concrete on that project. Um, but just driving by there, and it's like that building, that McKee Button building was so you know, it was always in the historical register or whatever, but it was such an eyesore forever, and now it's this gorgeous building at at what what used to be, you know, kind of a a not attractive part of town. And um, so I I loved that project. I thought that that was just really special.

SPEAKER_02 20:12

And on that same corner, the they call it the Carver Corner or now McKee Plaza corner. We're gonna be adding a roundabout there. And then there's one to two 56 unit uh market rate complex apartments going up.

SPEAKER_01 20:23

Oh, cool.

SPEAKER_02 20:24

In that corner. So what a great retention tool for the Kent Worldwide group.

SPEAKER_01 20:29

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 20:29

But then even if you go upriver a little bit next to uh the Hawkeye, it's the Hawkeye Lumber Yard site, right next to the bridge. You have a 65 unit uh complex, and we put seven feet of earth on top of that because people reached out on Facebook and they said, Hey, it floods over there. Yeah, great. We're gonna and we knew that, right? So you put seven feet of earth on top of it, and now sixty-five units going in there, and that's a great retention component for H.

SPEAKER_01 20:55

Seven feet of earth and uh deep foundation caissons that uh have honre to mix concrete in them. So yes. See, it all comes around. There we go. How many of those were there? I don't know how many holes there were.

SPEAKER_02 21:07

I do remember getting the information because there's like wood underneath and things like that that have these casings going on, but yeah, how is there quite a bit of them?

SPEAKER_01 21:14

Or um, yeah, I th I think it was a few hundred yards of concrete, but I I can't I can't remember. Not enough.

SPEAKER_00 21:20

It needs more. It needs more.

SPEAKER_01 21:21

We probably should add some extra just to be safe, right?

unknown 21:24

Right.

SPEAKER_01 21:25

Uh you know, I don't know. The the the diameter of those caissons can change and the depth they go to bedrock, right? So, you know, sometimes we do drill shafts, caissons that are um 10 feet deep, and sometimes they're 100 feet deep. So and the ones we did on the I-74 bridge were literally the diameter of this room. I mean, just a single drilled hole. So uh which, you know, that's a great description for a podcast when you can't see what you're talking about. But no, it's it's like uh uh 10 by 8, you know, is they were big. Uh so you could walk down them for sure. So yeah, yeah. Cool. Um, so you've talked about a couple projects. I mean, I know you probably can't talk about everything, but is there any other specific projects that like construction projects coming up that you're excited about?

SPEAKER_02 22:11

Yeah. So um housing is the number one needed musketeen.

SPEAKER_01 22:14

Okay.

SPEAKER_02 22:15

Um, education, healthcare are kind of like the number two, number three. Child care is number four. That's always a tough one, by the way. It's always a tough one unless we go to school all year round. Yeah. I think that could fix it, right? Which kids don't want to do that. Number five is just events and menus for people to have fun in the community. So housing is number one. You have these apartments going up. We just um well broke ground about several months ago on it's uh Clairback Lane. That's 26 units. That's uh housing town homes. Um, we have another one just off of Mall Bear that's gonna be hopefully moving forward. That'd be fifty another 50 single-family homes off of University Avenue. That could be anywhere from 50 to 70 to 100 new homes. So we are full court press on that. So those are the projects that I'm really excited about. And I didn't say any names specifically, but sure. That is what public-private partnership looks like. Yeah, uh, to the T. Um, some other projects too. I mean, there's some updates coming. Maybe in a couple months I can come back and share this. But it's just one, it's just so exciting. Um, all these things that have not happened, but you get you get people working together, and that's all it takes. Yeah. Working together, just hold people accountable and we move forward with big projects. But park avenues and you know, park avenue area, there's commercial businesses that are gonna be coming into town too. So yeah, there's there's some cool things.

SPEAKER_01 23:38

Excellent. That's wonderful to hear. With being a mayor, I'm just just for curiosity. What is the what's the most rewarding and on the counterpoint, what's the most challenging part of being a mayor of a community like Muskine?

SPEAKER_02 23:50

The most rewarding one is when people text you or they see like, good job. Like, seriously, good job. Yeah, that makes me feel good. Yeah, you know, I'm a I'm a people pleaser. I help people, thousands of people when I was in uh chiropractic, and I'm a people pleaser, and I like to make sure that everybody feels good. Um and uh I'd say one of my favorite things is doing ribbon cuttings, um, then life-saving awards, swearing in uh officers, things like that. That those are the rewarding things right there. Uh the I'd say flip side, the challenging things would be sometimes I can't share all the information that I'm supposed to because there's gotta be decisions made behind the scenes, and it's not always the most popular one. But yeah, you know, as I tell people, I promise it's always for the best for the community. Might not be initially, but later on it will be. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 24:44

Um I'm sure there's a lot of difficult decisions that come across your desk. I mean, yeah, that's just part of part of it, I would assume. So yeah. That's true. Cool. So for our employees that are living work in Muscatine, is there anything you would you want to share to them or things they should should know or be excited about for the future? You know what any any thoughts for for those employees in particular?

SPEAKER_02 25:07

So employees that work in muscatine or that live in muscatine or both? Both mostly. Hey, if you're if you're in the quad cities and you work in muscatine, we're gonna be make we're gonna be building some houses. So we'd love to see you guys there. Sorry, mayors of the quad cities, I know them anyways. Um, but uh um, so no, it I'd say there's a lot more uh amenities that we're gonna be focusing on. Yeah, most definitely. Again, the riverfront, the dome, focusing on increasing our trails as well. Right now we have 15 trails. We're gonna probably add another probably two to three miles of trails, cool, which is great. Hopefully, concrete trails, not asphalt, right? Oh, the concrete's the way to go. Yeah, absolutely.

SPEAKER_01 25:46

I love it. Yeah, you know what? I've seen something cool that uh I I always wanted to do in one of our service areas and never done it. Um, over in Des Moines, they started doing this. They're putting like a broadcasting reflective aggregate out on them. So the trails at night they glow. It's really cool.

SPEAKER_00 26:04

So it's weird that you think that's cool, but when I wanted to broadcast the sparkles on concrete, you are not into that.

SPEAKER_01 26:09

No, I don't care what you do in your driveway.

unknown 26:11

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 26:12

So I I love I love the glow in the dark. Yeah, I think that's awesome. Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 26:17

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 26:17

You're probably talking about the one that has like the blue or green.

SPEAKER_01 26:20

Yeah, kind of a greenish, yeah. Oh, it's awesome.

SPEAKER_02 26:22

Sparkles would be good. My daughter would love sparkles.

SPEAKER_00 26:26

A lot of big cities have them on their sidewalks.

SPEAKER_02 26:30

Cool. Hey, uh, this could be a side business. I mean, that not even a side business. This could help grow. I mean, sure. She's thinking outside the box. Yeah. And you know, and I have to say, uh, Jeremy, Jeremy Drake. Um, I just uh I want to let everybody know from Han Ruddy Mix that I did beat him in an arm wrestling. Did you? Well, not not really, but I just feel good. He's got a messed up shoulder.

SPEAKER_01 26:52

So I feel like I feel like now's the time to get him if you're gonna try. Now it's right now's the time to get him. I'm sorry, Jeremy. Excellent. He's gonna text me back and be like, what are you doing? Well, we really appreciate you coming on here today and I and and coming up uh to to record with us. And and um I think this is great and hopefully interesting for everybody. And and you know, you said the most rewarding part was when you say people say thank you. I'll say thank you for the work you're doing for the community muscatine. And I appreciate that. You know, I don't talk to everybody, but the business people I talk to, uh, we love having you in that role. So I appreciate that. Thank you. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 27:28

And we'll take you back anytime when you have an announcement, exciting announcement. This will be a great place to broadcast.

SPEAKER_01 27:33

So excited. Yeah. Yeah. All right.

SPEAKER_00 27:36

Thanks for listening to Loaded, the Han Ready Mix podcast. We will talk to you again soon.

SPEAKER_01 27:40

Thanks so much.